Holocaust Agnostic:Of course, factually they have little hope of arresting US troops in any numbers

And wouldn't the military want to prosecute things like rape, murder, arson and rape anyway? Or is this a "Does the judge speak Arabic or English when they sentence you" kind of thing?

I know that there are sometimes loopholes that allow a servicemember to, say, participate in the gang-rape of a Japanese woman on a military base and not be tried for it (or maybe I'm remembering that wrong, and because it happened on-base, he was subject to UCMJ...whatever. There are loopholes).

Anyway, subjecting US troops to Afghan justice (when they fark up, of course) is a great way of conferring legitimacy to that government and its criminal justice system, don't you think?

The fact that public opinion supported "burning down Congress with all 535 members locked inside" over "spend 20 more military minutes in Iraq" had nothing to do with it? (I agree that that was a big driving factor, but no way was it 50+% of the reason.)